July 28, 2006

Robin Hood

Robin Hood was released in 1973, long after Disney's golden era ofanimated films had passed. I was completely captivated by it, the last time that would happen with me and a Disney cartoon. I can remember sitting in The Rescuers, four years later, and thinking it was for babies.

Robin Hood has a nice little tune in it, titled "Love," by Floyd Huddeston and George Bruns, sung by Nancy Adams. As you can see in the video, it's used in a "romantic" scene between Robin Hood and Maid Marian, yet the song seems to be about the love of a mother for her child. This makes lyrics such as "you're all grown up inside of me" seem rather odd, at best. Quite frankly, while the lyrics seem to have a nice message, they don't make a whole lot of sense if you analyze them too closely ("Life is brief, but when it's gone/Love goes on and on"???). But I do think the melody is very nice, though perhaps a little schmaltzy. The fairly prominent presence in the mix of guitar and electric bass marks another departure from the more traditional sound of classic Disney cartoon music.

7 comments:

Robin Hood was one of my FAVORITE Disney movies -- NO one ever knows what I'm talking about when I try to describe it! My sister and I actually had a crush on Robin Hood when we were little. He's definitely in the top three on our list of hot animated non-humans. Also on the list is Justin from The Secret of NIMH.

...what? Why are you looking at me like that? There is SO such a thing as hot animated non-humans.

I discovered while "researching" it that it's on DVD. You'd think it was a lot more obscure (like Black Cauldron, or something). I also remember the character being really likeable.

Exactly, who am I to judge? NO-body.

The decision to do a post about this was completely random, and it could have been something else. I just really like the song, cheesy though it may be. We do seem to have an almost uncanny similarity in pop culture interests. It's as if a power bigger than either of us is at work here.

I'll look for it, amy. I taped it off of the Disney Channel a couple of years ago, mainly for "Love," and I don't think I recorded the entire movie. If the oo-de-lally scene is there, I'll put it up (at the very least at YouTube).

About the song "Love," you mentioned, "the song seems to be about the love of a mother for her child." In case you got that idea from the line "it seems like only yesterday, you were just a child at play," I think that line is there because Maid Marian and Robin Hood were childhood pals.